CHAPTER 5
Personality Traits and Work Values
Personality: the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and
interacts with others. We often describe it in terms of the measurable
traits a person exhibits.
The most common means of measuring personality is through self-report
surveys. One weakness is that the respondent might lie or practice
impression management to create a good impression. Another problem is
accuracy, moods could affect the results.
It appears that personality is a result of both heredity and environment.
However, research tends to support the importance of heredity over the
environment.
The heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an
individual’s personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in
the chromosomes.
Twin studies have suggested parents don’t add much to our personality
development.
Personality is more changeable in adolescence and more stable among
adults.
Personality traits: when someone exhibits characteristics in a large
number of situations.
The more consistent the characteristic over time, and the more frequently
it occurs in diverse situations, the more important that trait is in
describing the individual.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): most widely used personality-
assessment instrument in the world. Respondents are classified as
extraverted or introverted (E or I), sensing or intuitive (S or N), thinking or
feeling (T or F), and judging or perceiving (J or P).
Extraverted (outgoing), introverted (shy), sensing (details), intuitives (big
picture), thinking (reasons), feeling (emotions), judging (control,
structured), perceiving (flexible).
Evidence is mixed about its validity as a measure of personality, however;
most evidence is against it. There is no in between, though in reality
people can be both introverted and extraverted to some degree.
Big Five Model: five basic dimensions underlie all others and encompass
most of the significant variation in human personality.
Test scores of these traits do a very good job of predicting how people
behave in a variety of real-life situations.
, Extraversion (comfort level with relationships), agreeableness (individual’s
propensity to defer to others), conscientiousness (measure of reliability),
emotional stability (person’s ability to withstand stress), openness to
experience (range of interests and fascination with novelty).
Conscientiousness is most consistently related to job performance.
Big Five Why is it relevant? What does it affect?
Traits
Conscientiousn Less negative thinking and Higher job & life
ess fewer negative emotions. satisfaction.
Less hyper-vigilant.
Lower stress levels.
Emotional Better interpersonal skills. Higher performance.
stability Greater social dominance. Enhanced leadership.
More emotionally Higher job & life
expressive. satisfaction.
Extroversion Increased learning. Training performance.
More creative. Enhanced leadership.
More flexible & More adaptable to
autonomous. change.
Agreeableness Better liked. Higher performance.
More compliant and Lower levels of deviant
conforming. behaviour.
Openness Greater effort & Higher performance.
persistence. Enhanced leadership.
More drive and discipline. Greater longevity.
Better organized &
planning.
Core self-evaluations: people who have positive core self-evaluations
like themselves and see themselves as effective, capable, and in control
of their environment. Those with negative core self-evaluations tend to
dislike themselves, question their capabilities, and view themselves as
powerless over their environment.
Machiavellianism: an individual high in Machiavellianism is pragmatic,
maintains emotional distance, and believes ends can justify the means.
Narcissism: describes a person who has a grandiose sense of self-
importance, requires excessive admiration, has a sense of entitlement,
and is arrogant.
Self-monitoring: refers to an individual’s ability to adjust behaviour to
external, situational factors.
Risk taking: willingness to take chances, a quality that affects how much
time and information they need to make a decision.
